u/Public_Future2841

Much of metro Detroit is built out, but if you look close, there's some natural beauty to be had. Just off the main branch of the Rouge in Southfield.

Coming soon to the former shoe repair shop off the side of Hartfield's.

https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/local/2026/08/18/berkley-city-council-passes-e-bike-ordinance-what-residents-need-to-know/

The first thing that needs to be clarified, that this article kinda explained, is that aside from regulating ebikes on all sidewalks citywide, it bans all bicycles from Downtown sidewalks.

That's all of Coolidge from 11 Mile to 12 Mile and 12 Mile from Coolidge to Greenfield. So the next time you wanna take a family bike trip up to Frosty Freeze, enjoy the unprotected strip of paint next to 30mph cars! It'll be even more fun trying to get the littles to Clark's as multiple lanes of cars zoom past with no space whatsoever!

As for the blanket ban on ebikes, this just means the middle schoolers trying to get to the bike racks on Catalpa will be forced to ride in the street with the heavily increased car traffic during the morning drop off and afternoon pickups.

It also means that the 8 foot wide multiuse path along the cemetery north of 12 Mile, the one with no businesses, houses, driveways, or intersections is deemed unsafe for ebikes. Instead the law now says 13 year olds on 20 mph ebikes should ride in 35mph Coolidge highway.

Basically all this ordinance does is highlight the abysmal state of cycling infrastructure in town. There's a few easy fixes that Council can take action on now, and a few more difficult things to tackle.

1. Designate the the pathway along the cemetery officially as a multi-use path and exempt it from this ordinance. Easy Peasy.

2)On Catalpa, move the white shoulder lines one foot toward the center median. The travel lanes on Catalpa are currently one foot wider than the travel lanes on Coolidge. Narrowing the roadway will free up space, not quite enough for proper bike lanes, but it will make things safer for cyclists, especially on garbage day! Plus the narrowed lanes will have the added benefit of encouraging slower car speeds. The best part is that we repaint these lines on a regular basis, so it's already a line item in the budget.

Those are the easy ones, next are bit more ambitious

3)Reconfigure the Coolidge bike lanes. Move the lanes next to the curb with car parking on the outside closest to the travel lane, like how Livernois is currently set up in Ferndale. Add some bollards to keep cars from mistakenly parking in the lanes and as an added visual barrier. This one shouldn't be too difficult to accomplish the next time Coolidge is due for a resurfacing (which seems soonish based on its current condition)

4)Add bike lanes to 11 Mile & 12 Mile. A multi-city study was done less than 10 years ago about converting 11 Mile to 3 lanes from Woodward to Greenfield. Mockups were drawn and presented in Berkley, Huntington Woods and Oak Park. From what I hear they're planning on hiring a new consultant to do this same study all over again, which seems unnecessary, but I'm happy it's still a conversation being had.

12 Mile is trickier since it's owned by the county (the ones what footed the bill for the recent resurfacing.) They're hesitant to give up 4 lanes of travel through the heart of our downtown. So unless the city wants to assume ownership of 12 Mile (and all the maintenance costs that go along with it), any plan there has to have the county's blessing.

Keeping those sidewalks safe!

We canceled the century old tradition of Berkley Days because some teenagers got into fist fights.

Meanwhile, this is the Family Friendly event to take the kiddos to?

Ultra Wisconsin even?

People were so disenchanted with establishment-backed, AIPAC supported Stevens (as evidenced by AES' returns)...and then replaced her with establishment-backed, AIPAC supported Moss...

So I was poking around on Oakland County's recently updated historical aerial maps and was hoping someone could help me out. In Southfield, just east of Telegraph between the Lodge and Northwestern highway there's a neighborhood along the Rouge. It appears to be a fairly new subdivision in 1940 (1st photo), a bit unusual for Southfield at the time, especially that far out. Nevertheless, by 1949 (2nd photo), development appears to be flourishing. The third photo is from 1963, by then this portion of 696 was underway and the neighborhood is in the process of being dismantled to make way for photo 4 from 70's and the corridor we know today.

Does anyone know anything about this area? I know some houses were taken through imminent domain for the project, but those were typically just the ones closest to the roadside. I hadn't realized an entire community was knocked down!

Edit: A golf course was located directly across Northwestern, a significant portion of which is now currently a synagogue. Redlining and covenants were commonplace back then. Could it have been a Jewish enclave that didn't make out as well as Oak Park perhaps?

I was poking around on the county's historical aerial viewer (they recently added 1949!) and I noticed this subdivision along the Rouge in Southfield just east of Telegraph. It was completely leveled to make way for 696. It looks like it was a fairly new development in 1940, the earliest the maps go back. Then it appeared to be well developed by '49, before before being in the process of being dismantled by '63. Does anyone have any information or memories of this place?

Spotted this sapling(s?) just off trail next to a small river in southeast Michigan. No other similar trees nearby, though I do know of some Pawpaws that grow about mile downstream.

26 year old Liquid Blue reprint of a 32 year old Dead shirt. Not a bad day at the mini-bins!

Haha The Pours!

Back before Berkley was Berkley, it was a collection of developed cow pastures in Royal Oak Township. In the 19-teens the first wave of suburbanization crept up Woodward, spurred by Ford's Highland Park plant. Developers began buying up the pastures, piecemeal at first. It was uncommon for developers to build housing on the properties, they did the work of building out basic infrastructure, streets, sidewalks, sewers and water (though not in Berkley early on). Individual lots were then sold to the general public. This was before zoning codes, but developers could also place certain restrictions on the lots. The Huntington Woods subdivision for example set specific guidelines for types of materials property owners could use in building and forbade owners from building temporary structures while the primary house was built. Many of the developers, looking to attract the influx of lower wage autoworkers took a more libertarian approach, even advertising the fact that you could build a garage first and live out of it while working on the rest! Others lived in tent houses, with temporary ersatz walls and canvas roofs. But not B.H. Stephenson (of the highway fame)! He owned the Oakland Manor development. It was located adjacent to the recently opened Roseland Park cemetery, which had a certain prestige with wealthy Detroiters at the time. Plus it was just across Woodward from Vinson and Bassett's new high end development along the Red Run. With Palmer Park, north Ferndale and Huntington Woods taking a similar approach, it seemed sensible to Stephenson to place restrictions on his development. To really showcase his vision for the properties he purchased 5 higher end kit homes from Sears and had them built in the neighborhood.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1755-Beverly-Blvd-Berkley-MI-48072/24638508\_zpid/

This one here just went on the market. Adjusted for inflation, the Preston would run a little over $80,000 today. Times 5 and you're at $400,000 for materials, plus shipping and permits, then you have to pay contractors to put them all together. This wasn't an insignificant investment on Stephenson's part. When Berkley became a village in 1923, owing to the freer developments throughout the town, the Detroit News compared it to the ramshackle towns the had sprung up in Wyoming oil territories. The higher end buyers that Stephenson hoped to attract failed to materialize. But his restrictions remained, so nearly every parcel sat vacant until after world war 2. It was empty for so long that some of the existing sidewalk slabs date back to 1916.

As I understand it from looking at the zoning map, all the houses directly adjacent to 12 Mile frontages are zoned parking. So when a developer bought a house a few blocks over on Cummings several years ago, they learned the hard way that the city was unwilling to rezone the lot. So now it's been vacant for several years as the city has no immediate plans to pave it over. Now I noticed another house over on Ellwood is gone. Is Green Lantern expanding their parking?

Check it out!